Group To Help Gracedale Residents With Bad Eyesight

Gracedale residents whose problems with vision can be helped by special equipment will be pinpointed through the next year by the Northampton County Association for the Blind.

The county has awarded a contract to the association to test selected residents in the nursing home near Nazareth and determine if their eyesight can be enhanced by "vision aids."

Jerry Friedman, county director of human services, said that the low- vision screening program may reopen the world of reading, television, sewing and handwork to residents whose eyesight has failed to the point where glasses are no longer useful.

"We have a new initiative to look at all of the people at Gracedale and see what their maximum capacity is," Friedman said yesterday. "A lot of people can do a lot more if someone works with them to enhance their eyesight.

"The Blind Association has all kinds of neat little equipment, like magnifiers."

Harold Russell, assistant director of Gracedale, said staff members are selecting residents who are alert and can cooperate with the association workers and wear glasses "but have a hard time seeing."

Those chosen are checked by association staffers and referred for review to the nursing home's ophthalmologist.

Louise Snyder, assistant clinical director at Gracedale, said the screening is being accomplished floor by floor. Twenty-nine of the 51 residents on the first floor have been examined thus far, she said.

"We became aware of adaptive devices which would help vision," Russell said. "With Jerry Friedman, we contacted the Blind Association. Our patients are checked on a regular scheduled basis at the ophthalmological clinic, but this is a different matter."

The association will visit Gracedale each month, and the county will pay the association $233.33 a month for the service, under an order signed by County Executive Eugene Hartzell.

Friedman said, "I'm excited about it, because it's a more in-depth kind of thing than happens in most nursing homes. It's like an added dimension."

He said that Gracedale's eye program in the past has concentrated more on treatment than on rehabilitation.

"The Northampton County Blind Association is one of a very few doing this kind of screening," he said. "For those identified as having a need for the low-vision services, it will provide a four-hour follow-up and will lend the patients low vision aids and appliances. It also will do re-exams on those who failed."

Russell said he "hopes it will open vision for more patients."

Added Friedman, "It's a quality of life thing. Imagine not being able to read - and then being able to read again."